Journal for the Study of Postsecondary and Tertiary Education (JSPTE)

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Article Submission Guidelines

No Charge for Article Submission and Publication

Journal for the Study of Postsecondary and Tertiary Education (JSPTE) is a publication of the Informing Science Institute (ISI), and so does not charge for submitting papers to the journal nor for publishing an accepted paper. ISI is a truly scientific organization, not a commercial enterprise masquerading as a professional organization. We believe in the free dissemination of high-quality research.

Papers accepted for publication are published under a Creative Commons license and bear the following notice:

(CC BY-NC 4.0) This article is licensed to you under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. When you copy and redistribute this paper in full or in part, you need to provide proper attribution to it to ensure that others can later locate this work (and to ensure that others do not accuse you of plagiarism). You may (and we encourage you to) adapt, remix, transform, and build upon the material for any non-commercial purposes. This license does not permit you to use this material for commercial purposes.

Since this is an open access journal, readers are provided the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, and link to the full texts of articles in the Journal. We encourage readers to use, reuse and build upon the material in the Journal for non-commercial purposes as long as attribution is given when appropriate or necessary. Take care to give attribution since plagiarism is a serious academic offense.

(Papers that have been approved after review must be formatted camera-ready prior to final acceptance. We prefer that authors do their own formatting. But we provide a formatting service (for $75 USD) as an option. Formatting is not the same as copy editing. Authors who need the services of a copy editor competent to help with journal papers are encouraged to make their own arrangement prior to submitting their paper. Some universities provide these services for their researchers.

Timeframe for Review

Typically, within three weeks from submission the Editor-in-Chief Crystal R Chambers will contact the corresponding author with news of whether or not the submission will be advanced to the first round of reviews (or is being rejected as not suitable for publication in the journal). (If you do not hear from the Editor-in-Chief Crystal R Chambers in a month, feel free to contact Crystal R Chambers at chambersc@ecu.edu.) Recognize that these suggested timeframes may be unattainable when the Editor-in-Chief has higher priority work constraints.
If the submission is accepted for the first round of reviews, a panel of reviewers and Editor will assigned to blind review the submission is that often called double-blind. This means that the reviewers do not know the submission author's identity and the author is never privy to the names of the reviewers.

Typically the first round of review concludes approximately 10 weeks later with the Editor sending the corresponding author a letter regarding acceptance. Whether or not the paper will be advanced for further review or publication, at the conclusion of the review, the Editor provides the author with a development letter using the input of the reviewers. The decision may be to reject, conditionally accept pending specified revisions, or accept the paper. Most commonly papers that are accepted require several rounds of revision. Since the submission may require several rounds of review and most of this time is determined by how promptly the author responds, there is no meaningful average time between submission and publication or rejection. While most rejections occur within one week of submission, submissions may be rejected during any point during the review cycle.

Format for Accepted Papers

When your paper is accepted for publication, you will be required to re-submit the final, formatted copy of your paper. The formatting guidelines for accepted papers can be found here. Since this document is a MS Word template, if you save it to your computer as a template and attach it to your paper (using Tools, Templates and Add-ins) you will have the correct formatting for the paragraphs. If you do not use MS Word, just print the document and follow its instructions.

Because the contents of a paper may shift during formatting, make figures so they can be moved and/or resized easily. As explained in the detailed guidelines, this can best be done by placing figures with multiple parts within a text box.
In addition to adding the name, affiliation, city, and country for each author at the beginning of the paper, end the paper with a Biography section that contains a brief paragraph or two about each author. Please insert a head-and-shoulders photo of the author beside the biographical information.

Prior to final acceptance, the Editor will instruct the author to return a fully formatted paper for final review. When satisfied that the paper meets Informing Science standards, the Editor will send it to the Informing Science publisher who will do the final formatting and quality control.
Articles appear on-line as soon as the final formatting is completed and in print annually.

How to Submit Your Manuscript

Authors submit their manuscripts electronically using the submission and review system. All manuscripts must be the authors' original, unpublished work. The manuscript must not be under consideration for publication elsewhere.

We check all submissions for plagiarism. Please see our Ethics policy; we take plagiarism seriously.

If you are not using Word as your word processor, print this document and read more about the required formatting guidelines. However, if you are using Word, you can (and should) save time by using this file to attach the correct paragraph formatting to your paper. This file contains not only instructions for you, but also instructions for Word on how to format paragraphs as Heading 1, Heading 2, and such.

Different versions of Word have different ways of saving these formatting styles on your computer. First, open this document on your computer.

If you are using Word 2010, select the Home tab, click on Change Styles and then Style Set. Scroll to the bottom of the list of styles and select Save as Quick Style Set. Save these styles as a Quick Style Set giving it a meaningful name.

If you are using Word 2016, select the Design tab and click on the pull down arrow at the right of the display of designs. Select Save as New Style Set. Save these styles and give it a meaningful name.

To attach the styles to a blank document or one that you have already created, do the following. Open the document.

If you are using Word 2010, select the Home tab, click on Change Styles and then Style Set. The name you gave the style set should appear in the list. Click on it to attach it to your file.

If you are using Word 2016, select the Design tab and click on the pull down arrow at the right of the display of designs. The Style Set you saved should appear under Custom. Click on the name to attach it to your document.

If you don’t want to save the styles, save this document under a new name. Delete from the top of page 2 to the end. You will have the correct formatting for the first page and the paragraphs, as well as the paragraph styles and can copy and paste your paper into it.

General Information

Prepare your manuscript in Microsoft Word or export it from a different word processor into RTF format, following the specifications that we show here.

For papers that deal with data analysis, make the data available to readers via a link you place in your paper to a website where you store your data, if at all possible. We can help.

When you submit your paper for review, make sure that you have anonymized your paper by removing all references to yourself or your institution. Make sure these are removed from the document properties as well. To have your paper reviewed, you need first to submit a “blinded” version (without author or affiliation information) that can be blind reviewed. After your paper is accepted, add the author information.

While there are no regulations on length, it will be exceptional for an article to exceed 20,000 words.

Language and Grammar Consistency

We publish papers written in English. If you have questions on English grammar or punctuation, search the web for guidance. You can find an excellent guide at http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar

While we prefer the use of U.S. spelling, we also accept other versions of English as long as they are used consistently throughout the paper.

Content

First Page Layout

To put the first page of your document in the proper format, copy the content of the first page from this file into your document and fill in the abstract information.

Author information (added after paper has been accepted)

Once the Editor has accepted your paper, insert the full name, the affiliation (University or Company), City, Country, and email address for each author on the first page. Insert additional rows if there are more than two authors.

Also include a short biography and a head-and-shoulders photo (if available) for each author at the end of the paper.

What to put in the abstract

The abstract is a brief summary of the contents of the article; it should give enough information to make the reader want to learn more about your research. But it needs to be concise. In each of the boxes on the first page, enter one or two brief sentences appropriate for your paper. Omit citations from the abstract; citations for the paper’s sources do appear in the body of the paper.

If any of the abstract subtopics do not apply to your paper, put NA in that box.

Body of Paper

Introduction or background

All papers should begin with an introduction that sets the stage for the discussion. For some disciplines, it more appropriate to use Background as an alternative first section.

Body

The body is a collection of multiple sections describing the main content of the paper. You should use up to three levels of headings to categorize content as deemed necessary: Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3.

Conclusion

This section summarizes the paper, presents challenges, suggests future study, and so on to create a lasting impression of the paper.

Appendix

If there is an appendix, place it after the References and before the Biography. If there is more than one appendix, add a letter after “Appendix.”

If you have used a questionnaire in a study, include a copy of it as an appendix.

References

Following the conclusion is a list of all references used in the body of the paper. The current APA formatting guidelines are used to make internal citations within the body as well as provide the complete alphabetic list of reference citations at the end of the paper. (See the Entering References section for more details.) The References list contains only works cited in the paper and all works cited in the paper must be listed in the References section.

Biography(ies) with Picture

After the paper is accepted, for each author of the paper, please provide a one or two paragraph biography that describes the author’s background relevant to this article. If you have one, insert a head-and-shoulder photo to the left of the biography of each author or send it separately and we will insert it.

Page Formatting

To make it easier to read the paper online, use single column formatting for the paper.

Page Size

Set the paper size to 8 1/2 by 11 inches.

Margins

Select Mirror Margins. Top and bottom margins should be 1 inch. Set the inside margin to 1.5 inches and the outside margins to 1 inch. (If you have problems doing this, leave the left and right margins at 1.25 inches.)

Headers and Footers

Insert page numbers in the footer. We will add the remaining information for the headers, and footers.

Hyphenation

Hyphenate the text in the document. To turn on hyphenation:

Select Language on the Layout or Page Layout menu.

Select Hyphenation.

Check Automatically hyphenate document.

Footnotes

The journal does not allow for footnotes or endnotes. Insert your clarifications within the body of the paper. The editors will remove footnotes and place the material within the text.

Paragraph Styles

If you have not attached your paper to these styles, use Word’s default paragraph styles for your document, making just the changes indicated below. If you do not know how to modify a style, see the section on Modifying a Style.

Headings

Do not number headings. Enter the headings with no outline numbers or letters in front of them.

Paper title

Use the Paper Title for the title of your paper. It is centered with a border under it. The font for this style is Garamond, 16 point, Bold, and Small Caps.

The paragraph formatting is Centered with a 6 point space after it and an underline border at the bottom. The “Keep with Next” property is selected.

Capitalize the first letter of every major word. Do not use all upper case.

First level headings

Use the Heading 1 style for the title and for major headings. The font for this style is Garamond, 16 point, Bold, and Small Caps.

The paragraph formatting has a 3 point space before and 6 point space after it and an underline border at the bottom. The “Keep with Next” property is selected.

Capitalize the first letter of every major word for both the title and first level headings. Do not use all upper case.

Second level headings

Use the Heading 2 style for second level headings. The font for this heading is Garmond, 14 point, Bold, Italic and Small Caps. The space before the paragraph is 12 point and the space after is 3 point. The “Keep with Next” property is selected.

Capitalize the first letter of every major word in second level headings. Do not use all upper case.

Third level headings

Use the Heading 3 style for third level headings. The font for this heading is Garamond, 12 point, Bold. The space before the paragraph is 12 point and the space after is 3 point. The “Keep with Next” property is selected.

Capitalize only the first word and proper nouns in this heading.

Text Paragraphs

Use the Normal style for paragraphs of text. The paragraph is single-spaced with no indentation and has a 6-point space after it. The font for this style is 11 point Garamond. Do not put blank lines between paragraphs.

Other types text of paragraphs

Forth level. Three levels of headings are enough for most papers. If you need another level, such as for this paragraph, use the Normal style and place the heading at the beginning of the paragraph in bold font.

Lists. Use Word’s automatic bullet or number formats for lists.

References: Use a 10 point font with a hanging indent of 0.25 inches.

Other. Use other formats only when absolutely necessary.

Figures and Tables

A table is data presented in tabular format with rows and columns. A figure is any other pictorial representation of data such as graphs or drawings. Each figure or table must be numbered and have a brief caption that describes it. Every figure or table must be referenced in the body of the paper. Table 1 is an example of a table and Figure 1 is an example of a figure.

Table 1. Example of a table

ID#

LAST

FIRST

CATALOG #

CATEGORY

QUANTITY

AMOUNT

COMMISSION

S00001

Golden

Rod

M00002

Multiple

2

$250.00

$12.50

S00001

Golden

Rod

M00012

Hiking

1

$50.00

$2.50

S00001

Golden

Rod

M00028

Multiple

1

$95.00

$4.75

S00002

Red

Rose

M00038

Multiple

1

$35.00

$1.92

Figure 1. Example of a figure

The caption for tables is placed above the table; the caption for figures is placed below the figure.

Since all accepted papers need to be reformatted before publication, it is important that all figures and tables can be easily resized and/or moved. Since tables and figures may be moved during the final formatting, do not use “above” or “following” when referring to them; just give the table or figure number. Also, do not use automatic numbering of tables and figures as these can become corrupted when figures have to be rearranged. Tables may be inserted directly into the paper or placed on a separate page at the end of the paper.

There are two ways to submit figures.

insert the figure, formatted as a picture that can be resized. It is best if it is inserted directly into the paper with “in line” wrapping.

send figures as PowerPoint slides in a separate file and, within the paper, indicate where they are to appear,

Do not send figures formatted as separate text boxes or groups of images on the page.

Copyright and Creative Common License

We will publish your paper under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License and the author retains the copyright.

By submitting the paper, as author you certify the following:

You hold copyright for this submission, and

You warrant that you have not infringed on any copyright and assume full liability in case of copyright dispute.

Copyright Issues for Figures

There are three common sources of figures.

Figures you have copied from another source, including a web site. You must contact the holder of the copyright for the image and get permission to use it. Cite the source and add “used with permission.”

Figures that you create based on another’s work. You do not need to get permission, but include in the citation “adapted from” or “based on” and give the source.

Figures that are your original work. Since you hold the copyright for these, there are no copyright issues.

Entering References

References are to follow the current American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines except that we require the full URL for papers obtainable online for those that do not have a DOI. We have placed a summary of these guidelines on the web at https://www.informingscience.org/Uploads/APA_2017.pdf

Within the text of your paper, cite sources by placing the author's last name and the date in parentheses, as shown by the examples in the following paragraphs. The citations within this section direct you to examples of the guidelines.

List the sources alphabetically at the end of the paper under a level-one heading called “References,” as shown at the end of this document. Place entries in alphabetical order according to the last name of the first author.

Italicize titles of books and journals (Boyd & Cohen, 2003; Katz, 1995). Do not italicize, underline, or put quotes around the titles of journal articles or essays in edited collections. Capitalize all major words in the name of a journal, but when referring to any work that is NOT a journal, such as a book, article, or Web page, capitalize only the first letter of the first word of a title and subtitle, the first word after a colon or a dash in the title, and proper nouns (Backhouse, Liebenau, & Land, 1991).

If the author of an article is unknown, begin the reference with the headline or title, as in the example for this paragraph, and use the first few words in the parenthetical citation (“How to handle,” 2002).

When there are two or more works by the same author, repeat the name of the author in each entry in the list of references and place them in chronological order by date of publication. If you a citing both works at once in the paper, list all relevant dates in the citation (Katz, 1995, 2000). To cite works by the same author(s) and with the same publication date, add an identifying letter after each date (Roussev, 2003a, 2003b). Put these in alphabetical order by the first major work in the title.

Multiple Authors: If a work has two authors, include both authors in both the list of references and each parenthetical citation (Boyd & Cohen, 2003). If the work has three, four, or five authors list all authors in the reference list and in the first parenthetical citation to the work; in subsequent citations use the first author’s name followed by et al. (meaning “and others”) (Backhouse et al., 1991). For works with six authors or more authors, place only the first author followed by et al. in all parenthetical citations (Barg et al., 2000; Gorgone et al., 2002).

In the reference list, when a work has up to (and including) seven authors, list all authors (last name followed by initials). Place a comma after the last name of each author and after that author’s initial(s). Place an ampersand (&) before the last author.

When citing sources from the Web, include the year of publication or the most recent update as well as the date of your search and the URL. Do not end the path statement or a DOI with a period (Burgess, 1995; Roussev, 2003b).

Authors are encouraged to use appropriate links to on-line resources in their citations.

Do not use footnotes for references. Footnotes should not be used at all. Either include inline the information mentioned (if it is important) or omit it. The only exception is to show the funders of the research on the first page.

DOI in Reference list. Crossref has updated their DOI display guidelines, in part to ensure security (with https). Here is an example of the new recommended format: https://doi.org/10.28945/2714

Roussev, B. (2003b). Teaching introduction to programming as part of the IS component of the business curriculum. Proceedings of the InSITE 2003 Conference, 1353-1360. https://doi.org/10.28945/2714

Biography

(Leave this blank when submitting for review.)

Include one or two short paragraphs about each author. Please include a head and shoulder photo of each author. You should include this photo and bio when you are asked to upload your final, formatted, camera ready copy. However, if you need to, you can send the photos by email to Publisher@InformingScience.org as separate attachments and we will insert them for you.